20 September 2011 6:05 PM

Britain's Green Tea Party

Chris Huhne, the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has indulged in some more LibDem juvenile name-calling by likening the Tories to the US Tea Party (they should be so lucky) in order to brand his Coalition partners as wacky hard-right extremists (this is what in LibDem circles passes for the doctrine of collective Cabinet responsibility). It is of course Huhne himself who, of all the Coalition ministers, most qualifies for the title of Secretary of State for Fanaticism and Ideological Idiocy.

For Huhne is the UK political leader of the Green Tea Party, otherwise known as anthropogenic global warming zealots. No matter that the ‘science’ underlying the AGW theory has been overwhelmingly shown to be intrinsically flawed, sloppy or blatantly corrupt. No matter that claim after claim made by the AGW proponents has been shown to be false (the latest demarche involves the prestigious Times Atlas of the World, which was discovered to have exaggerated the effects of climate change when Cambridge university scientists pointed out that its map showing the apparent disappearance of 115,830 sq miles of ice from Greenland had no basis in science and was contradicted by recent satellite images).

No matter that there is in fact no reputable evidence to suggest that the world is about to fry and that mankind is responsible. A few days ago, the latest in a long line of distinguished scientists finally said he’d had enough of this anti-scientific nonsense when Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, condemning the Society’s official stand on global warming:

‘In 2007, the APS adopted an official statement that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities were changing the atmosphere in ways that affected the Earth's climate.

‘ “The evidence is incontrovertible: global warming is occurring,” the APS stated. “If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.” ’

‘Giaever, an 82-year-old Norwegian, sent an e-mail to APS official Kate Kirby announcing his abrupt resignation. He said he “cannot live with the statement “on global warming, and said that global temperature had been “amazingly stable”.’

But hey, what do evidence or reason matter to a zealot riding the fashionable zeitgeist? Huhne’s energy policy is geared around combating climate change through reducing dependence on fossil fuels by increasing the use of renewable, ‘low carbon’ green energy sources and systems.

Leave aside for the moment the argument that the whole AGW theory is a scam and a fraud of epic dimensions. The fact is that there is precious little man can do to affect the climate, one of the most complex eco-systems in the whole of nature; and furthermore even less that can be done by Britain, which is responsible for only a tiny fraction of global carbon production.

Yet despite all these macro and micro objections Huhne – backed by the Prime Minister who turned the Tories green as a PR strategy -- is subjecting Britain to a policy which is loading green taxes onto consumers, crippling businesses and potentially destroying thousands of jobs. And all this when the British economy is refusing to grow and there are serious fears of a double-dip recession.

Nor is this madness confined to Britain. It seems to be becoming a bit of a speciality for cultures in steep decline which obviously want to obtain that little bit of extra push finally to send them over the edge of the cliff. Worried that the EU is going bankrupt, free-falling under the burdens of chronic debt, high unemployment, dying populations and the terminal blow of the Euro? Well never fear! The EU is now the world leader in Green Energy Transition. As Andrew McKillop, a former energy expert at the European Commission writes, this strategy is currently mired in an extraordinary absence of realism and coherence:

‘The policy set driving Europe’s green energy transition plan and programmes is incoherent, relying heavily on unsure and scientifically disputed claims that global warming is a crisis, as well as energy security, job creation and environmental concerns.

‘Current goals and strategies are in most cases neither sustainable nor rational... Presently we have a lose-lose context for all players except financial, and for them and as ever, this is short term gain only. Overall costs for achieving any specific level of green energy development are massively raised by this lose-lose context, which can only drive a general loss of credibility for green energy.'

Meanwhile other aspects of the sustainable energy revolution in the UK are also looking a bit... well, green round the gills. Huhne says he wants to help people save money on their energy bills. Bless! Time to promote those energy efficient solar panels which cut out the nasty capitalist middle-man by going straight to the sun? Alas, turns out that solar panels aren’t so hot after all:

‘A trial of the Coalition’s £3 billion “green deal”, under which householders can take out government-backed loans of up to £10,000 to improve energy efficiency, showed that in some cases bills rose despite the measures.

‘... It states: “A limited number reported they had checked their bill savings or checked the amount of electricity the solar panels were generating and the actuals were less than the predicted.” ’

Oh dear. Well, what about the Coalition’s exciting flagship £1.2 million ‘retrofit’ scheme under which householders are offered a package of free energy-efficiency improvements?

Alas, research suggests that this scheme could fail to meet national carbon reduction targets, leaving a 26 per cent ‘carbon black hole’ (some confusion of scientific terms here, surely?):

‘Research from Affinity Sutton shows social landlords undertaking the government’s green deal face a multi-million pound funding gap and will fall far short of the target to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

‘Trialling three packages of energy efficiency works - a low (£6,500), medium (£10,000) and high (£25,000) package - on 102 homes in different locations, Future Fit found that the low package, which is indicative of the amount the green deal will spend on each home, achieved only an 18 per cent cut in carbon emissions.

‘For each home there was a funding gap of around £3,000 between the net cost of the works and the value of the energy savings.

‘In addition, the report found just 4.8 per cent of the 800 residents approached took up the offer of free energy improvement works initially. The low response rate suggests residents are not interested in retrofit work.’

‘Not interested’, eh? Tsk tsk! If these householders aren’t careful, they’ll soon find that they too are being targeted as Tea Party types and demonised as enemies of humanity. That’s what happens when people think for themselves these days and realise that the emperor really does have no clothes – particularly if those clothes are green.

Share this article:

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

"No matter that the ‘science’ underlying the AGW theory has been overwhelmingly shown to be intrinsically flawed, sloppy or blatantly corrupt." Melanie Phillips.

- I haven't seen this. Apart from the famous e-mails. I don't think the consensus is changed.

"The fact is that there is precious little man can do to affect the climate, one of the most complex eco-systems in the whole of nature; " Melanie Phillips.

- Then why do scientists agree that the Antarctic and Artic ozone holes were caused by man (by CFC's)? Melanie Phillips says she is an expert on global warning and the environment, (she says it's guaranteed man made global warming and environmental damage is a scam). So can she explain to me why the Artic ice is melting? Is it a third or two thirds now?

I thought the scientific consensus was that global warming is real but no one knows if man's contribution is significant; and therefore we must act as if it is. How come she knows better than most scientists? How much scientific research has she done? And why doesn't she save us all a lot of money and trouble by publishing her research and findings in the scientific journals; thereby ending the 'scam'?

You may have heard the representative of the publishers (Harper Collins) on the 'Today' programme earlier this week being questioned by James Naughtie on the Times World Atlas fiasco.

I have heard many interiews with politicians over the years both on radio and TV, but this interview with the woman from Harper Collins really took the biscuit. I swear I have NEVER heard its like. Jim Naughtie tried his best with her but..... She went on and on forever with long-winded excuses and reasons for this and that, and never answered anything he put to her. Afterwards, a commentator summed the interview with the single word 'Wow'.

I realise that it is not common practice for a Daily Mail reporter to actually check back to an original source, but had Melanie broken with tradition and actually checked the links back to what Ivar Giaever actually said, she would have seen that he wrote ...

Quote
"In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period."
End Quote

Even if we accept at face value what is stated in his letter, he says that there has been an increase in temperature. Furthermore, it seems to me that his reasoning is a little suspect in that he seems to tie improvements in 'health' and 'happiness' together with increasing temperature. Does he discount the myriad other possibilities which may have been at work over the same period.

Of course, I do not discount the possibility that Melanie actually did check back to see what he wrote, but chose to copy and paste only those sections which agree with the position she takes. Either lazy or dishonest - although I am willing to entertain the possibility, that she merely did not understand the author's intent.

Ms Melanie, our nation is going green in a rapid pace, but I'm sad to say that the green I refer to is a financial one called mildew. Any non- degree people can see that we are as good as done for our future generations to come. So yes, we are becoming a green mildew nation on the assumption that "common sense is not so common."
With our degree holders.

As long as the countless thousands of consensus climate change scientists are vastly outnumbering the climate change protesters in the streets and as long as they are not marching with us and acting like it’s the crisis they say it is, the court of reality declares the CO2 affair a tragic exploitation and exaggeration that needlessly condemned billions to catastrophic end.
Meanwhile, the UN had allowed carbon trading stock markets run by corporations and politicians to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 25 years of climate CONTROL instead of the obviously needed POPULATION control. This wasn’t about a climate change; it was about controlling a changing climate with taxes and sacrifice and we former believers promise you that history will call this a dark age for environmentalism. The end REALLY IS near, but not for the planet, but rather the entire climate change movement and criminal charges "will" come as a result. Politicians love to lay blame.

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the moderator has approved them. They must not exceed 500 words. Web links cannot be accepted, and may mean your whole comment is not published.